Divisional Realignment Ctd.

The change in the divisional realignment process is not nearly as sensible as might have been hoped. The point system has its problems, but those aren't worth quibbling about. It is close enough.

The real problem is the crowding of teams in divisions 3 and 4, which does not seem to be changing at all. I haven't seen the full list, but locally, only Liberty is moving (up). There is a reason for the bottom heavy structure. The state CIF rules say that schools with more than 1,250 students cannot compete below division 3 and schools with more than 500 students cannot compete below Division 4 in state playoffs. It looked for a while like the section would just do its playoffs differently, but no.

Shafter 36, Wasco 54

Nightmare of a first quarter for the Generals - 17-0. In the quarter, Shafter was 0-7 from the field (including three layups and an 8 footer), 0-4 from the line, and had 6 turnovers. As I said, a nightmare. From there, the Generals played even with Wasco, losing by 18.

Wasco Preview

I'm going to have to be quick about this because I have a busy day ahead of laying here and remembering past glories.

Shafter and Wasco are well matched teams. As they always are, the Generals and the Tigers will be hyped up for this game. Wasco will be looking to recover from the drubbing they suffered at BCHS on Tuesday. Shafter will probably need to play better than it did earlier this week against Arvin to come out victorious. I expect it to be close.

Wasco's head coach, Gerald Waldrip, is a cagey strategist, known for matching his defensive schemes to the opponent. I saw these two teams play this summer and if Waldrip remembers that game as I do, he knows that he doesn't have anyone who can stay with Cristian Barrios in space. Spacing and isolation are key for Shafter offense, the problem being getting defenders alone - which reminds me of this little piece of awesomeness -



As you probably could have guessed, I've been trying to find an excuse to post that for a while, but you really owe it to yourself to watch. The exploding piano, the spasmic leg kicks, the backlit frizz, the flowing cloaks, and the need to look up grimacing during a guitar solo, all set to an anthem of offensive spacing. That is why it is awesome. It will also take you right back to the Radon Fortenberry era, a very good time for Shafter basketball.

Back on topic - expect some kind of junk defense from Wasco in an effort to slow Barrios down. If that happens, the eyes of Shafter will turn to Adrian Trujillo for some artillery backup. Others too, but the first and simplest response to this sort of thing will be a few threes. This role as "first responder" is perhaps a way that we could talk about Trujillo as "the bombero," a beautiful of Spanish word that does not in fact mean "bomber" as I first thought.

Speaking of threes, remember when I noted that Christian Rodriguez was out and then back at Wasco. He was their best three point shooter last year and one of the best in the league connecting on nearly 40% of his attempts last year. Man is Rodriguez due this year. He is 6 for 43 on the year and had missed his last 22 attempts going into the BCHS game, a streak that stretched back to 2009. The stats aren't up yet, but Rodriguez did score three points, perhaps his drought is over.

Here is the all-time series record.

The game is in Shafter tonight. Near the peaceful western shore, but not so near as to be surrounded by insufferable weather snobs.

Division Realignment Passes

In principle, this seems like a good idea to me. You can also read more about it on Zach Ewing's blog.

Starting in the fall, individual teams (rather than schools) will be assigned a playoff division based on their performance in the past two years. "Performance" will be measured by league finish, playoff seed, and playoff finish. There will be a minimum of 13 teams in each division and you can only move one division each realignment.

The existing system is so arbitrary that almost any change is bound to be an improvement. How much of an improvement will depend. The main problems with the existing system are the distribution of teams and the assignment of teams within that distribution (aside from that, it's great!). In basketball, the distribution currently looks like this:

D1 - 11 teams
D2- 15 teams
D3- 27 teams
D4- 31 teams
D5- 10 teams

In three of the divisions, everyone with a pulse makes the playoffs. In the other two, about half of the teams stay home. The 13 team minimum helps even things a bit, but if you just moved two slots from D2 to D1 and three slots from D4 to D5, this distribution would be compliant. This kind of lumpiness only makes sense if there are some clear and wide breaks in competitive levels that you could accurately predict. You might want to keep such "natural" divisional breaks in place. I doubt that these exist, with the possible exception of the very top schools in some sports. Even if they did exist, I have serious doubts about the ability of the Central Section to locate them. This looks like it could be a baby step toward ending the lumpiness.

The second problem with the current alignment is with the assignment of teams to particular divisions. Currently this seems to be based partly on enrollment, but with a strong does of ad hoc caves to special pleading.



Ridgeview and Golden Valley have some of the highest enrollments in Bakersfield, higher than Division 1 Centennial, for example. But they drop all the way to Division 3, where they clean up. Why should they get to do that rather than North or West, both schools with lower enrollment? No idea.

My advice to Crichlow:

1. Try for an equal number of teams in each division. If one division is going to be small it should be the top one and only the top one. There is no good reason for some divisions to have three times as many schools as another.

2. Make the point system public. I expect it to lead to some goofy outcomes, but at least we'd know why.

3. Don't allow appeals. Every case is special. Every school has a reason why it should go up or down. The only fair way is to set the rules, make them as clear and fair as you can, then live with them.

Dogpile of Cliches Results in Imagery Logjam

CIF Central Section Commissioner Jim Crichlow on proposed realignment of divisions - "I just think it's time to move forward. I think [the proposal] will fly, I really do. If not, we'll go back to square one and start over."

The actual proposal sensibly moves in the direction suggested by Don at the end of the comment thread here.

Shafter 53, Arvin 46

The Generals are now 2-1 in league and 6-11 overall. Cristian Barrios scored 21, in a not pretty win. Remember though, the goodness of losses and the badness of wins fade over time until all that remains are pure quantities of Ws and Ls... and a river runs through them.

BCHS destroyed Wasco 71-39. Unlike some other Eagle routs I can think of, the margin came against the starters. 31-8 after first quarter - on 'em like a spider monkey! At that point, it was all over but the carcass-picking.

Tehachapi snuck out of Taft with a two point win in their loincloth. Sophomore Corey Lange announced his arrival as a big-time player, leading Tehachapi with a career high 22 points.

Alex Lee and Centennial beat a severely hobbled Ridgeview squad... and Lee didn't freak out afterwards! Congratulations to Coach Lee on both achievements.

Arvin Preview

It's been a long mid-season break for the Generals, who have not played in a week. Arvin comes to Shafter tonight. The Bears are 5 and 15 on the year. They can be tough, but this is a game Shafter should win. The historical series still favors Arvin 43-58, a lead built during Arvin's dominance in the 1960s and 1970s. Since 1991-92, Shafter has won 21 and lost 13.

SSL Basketball and Trouble on Paradise Drive

There seems to be more parity in the league this year than the last few. Tehachapi and Taft remain unbeaten, but perilously so. Wasco was pretty close to both of them and Shafter was within a couple of possessions with Taft until the they had to start fouling. Tehachapi has only played one league game due to weather. Arvin isn't going to contend for the league title, but wins against South and Wasco show that they can be a dangerous team.

Which brings us to Bakersfield Christian. Shafter handed them their first SSL loss in more than two years on their home court. Not a pretty scene. The BCHS Athletic Director was so upset that he fired the football coach and rehired the old coach (himself). Actually he had other reasons, including the football team's losing record. It does make you wonder if basketball coach Pete Rivera is feeling some pressure to stop losing to "outlying area" schools. Or maybe it triggered some swagger-nostalgia - "Remember when we used to beat Arvin in the first quarter and then just mess around and try to dunk the rest of the game?" Whatever the wind beneath their wings, those Eagles were flying high against Arvin, beating the bears 79-43.

While we are on the topic of coaching drama ... This is from a commenter on Zach Ewing's blog-

I just got home from the Centennial-Frontier Basketball game. I missed almost all of it because I had to work tonight at the Snack-Bar, blah blah blah, but I was catching the last minute or so, which was a nail biter. Packed stands, everyone on their feet, chants started, the band playing "Don't Stop Believin'", you gotta love it.. But, the real thing we should all take concern to was after the game - a huuuuge dispute between the coaches.

Apparently Frontier Coach Pierce said something to the young Centennial Coach (Alex Lee), something about "You're lucky..." something else. But, it pissed him off, and Pierce walked off. I heard a storm of curse words and the Centennial Coach went bizurk. He was screaming "That is such BS", and more to come that isn't so PG-13. But, he got in our Athletic Director's face about what he said, and some others on the office. I was shocked, but you gotta love a coach who has so much emotion about his own team, but something really must have ticked him off. I didn't want to ease-drop. Once he raged, he ran off the court, grabbing his stuff immediately, and ran into the weight-room being followed by his star Cody Kessler. His wife was yelling quite loud for him to calm down.

Zach talked to Pierce later and said that the story was "overblown" by the commenter.

Pierce says he did say something to Lee, an old friend, in the handshake line after the game in regards to Cody Kessler, who scored 30 more points in the 80-73 victory. According to Pierce, he said, "Hey, I wish I had a 40-point-a-game scorer," which he admits was a poor choice of words. He was trying to say, "Hey, Cody's a great player" not "You only won because of Cody." Pierce, in fact, said he thinks Lee is a better coach than he is. He also said the two talked afterwards, quickly reconciled and are having a barbecue this weekend.

Well, maybe that part was overblown, but the part of the story that I thought was interesting was where Alex Lee is storming around swearing at people after he won the game. His wife trying to calm him down? That is funny stuff.

Alex Lee and Jeremy Pierce both played for Centennial in the late 1990s. I am sure they are good friends, but its not like they took out an ad in the basketball program saying that they were "destined" to play together.

Tehachapi Preview

Game called off due to weather.

Shafter goes up the mountain tonight as 20 point underdogs according to Calpreps. This will be the fourth game in a row with roughly the same expectation. Shafter has won two of those and lost the third by a smaller margin than the computer expected. The model is adjusting to Shafter's performance, but Tehachapi is the best team of the bunch and Shafter is on the road, so bar slides up a bit.

As usual, Tehachapi has size and athleticism to spare. Dougan Patience, Jordan Beardsley, and Corey Torres lead the scoring. I am also impressed by Corey Lange, a 6-1 sophomore guard who has launched his 165 pound into several "thundering dunks" on the year.

Shafter leads the all-time series 46 to 38, with the outcome of one game unknown. Tehachapi has won the last 5 contests.

Shafter 50, Taft 59

It was a close game all the way through. Shafter was down two at half and down four in the middle of the fourth quarter, when Taft overcame a great defensive possession by Shafter with a long three out of a scramble to beat the shot clock and go up by seven. The Generals had to start fouling and Taft made enough free throws to spread the margin and run the clock out.

Taft is a good team. This is ten in a row for them. We want to beat good teams, but it sounds like the team continued to play at the higher end of its range. It will need to. Friday, Shafter is scheduled to go up the mountain and play Tehachapi. With the weather being what it is, might not happen, but Tehachapi is every bit as tough as Taft.

Taft Preview

On the night of January 5th, things looked pretty gloomy for Shafter. The Generals lost by 15 at home to a Delano team that seemed to be the weakest on the schedule for nearly a month. It was the sixth consecutive Shafter loss, putting the Generals record at 3 and 10, with games against heavy favorites Sierra and BCHS to come. There were positive signs to be sure. The young players were gaining valuable experience and the effort level remained high. Still, the chances of threatening the top teams in the SSL seemed dim. Then, Shafter pulled out a victory against Sierra, followed by a road win over BCHS and suddenly the near future looks much brighter and tonight's game at home against Taft (another 20 point favorite) looks much less daunting. A win against Taft would vault Shafter right into serious contention for the league title.

Game Notes:

- Taft (14-5) comes to town riding a 9 game winning streak.

- Shafter leads the all-time series, which dates back to Shafter's inaugural 1930-31 season, 93-82, but has lost the last four meetings.

- This will be a showdown of the two best pure point guards in the league. Both Cristian Barrios of Shafter and Eric LeClair of Taft make things happen off the dribble.

- Taft has typically played a sag-and-switch man defense against Shafter to clog up driving lanes and force Shafter to make threes.

- Taft forward Blake Emberson is one of the biggest floor-slapping flop artists this side of Durham, NC. He took 36 charges last year and already has 28 this year. That ranks fifth in the nation! This despite the fact that Emberson doesn't seem to play very much. He has played in 13 of their 19 games and is the 8th leading scorer on the team. Last year, Shafter held this latter day Fosbury to just one charge in two games.

Shafter Hail!

Shafter 62, BCHS 58

This is a very nice win on the road. From Maxpreps, here are the scores by quarter:

Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Final
Shafter	15	16	14	17	62
Bakersfield Christian	17	11	15	15	58

I will provide more details when I can.

From The Californian:

Shafter 62, Bakersfield Christian 58

SHAFTER (5-10, 1-0 SSL) -- Senoran 11, Barrios 22, Trujillo 6, Lazaro 4, Parsons 4, Hernandez 2, Anzurez 8, McGuire 2, Hiebert 3.

BCHS (4-13, 0-1 SSL) -- Harris 17, Howes 10 (10 assists), Kingley 16 (9 rebs), Fahrney 2, Adeoye 5, Hallstrom 4, DeHoog 2.

Note: BCHS had its 22-game SSL winning streak snapped.

JV--BCHS 56, Shafter 51; FS--BCHS 46, Shafter 41.

Bakersfield Christian Preview

The Eagles this year, like the Eagles last year rely on three players for the majority of their offense. The indomitable pair of Colby Herron and Marcus Hall has graduated (Hall is now playing for CSUB) and, understandably, their replacements Jordan Kingley and Bryce Howes (both juniors) have not soared as highly. Howes was a three point specialist last year and is growing into an expanded role in the offense. He is still a bomber though, shooting 44% from distance. The returning member of the trio is point guard Tyler Harris. Harris has been hindered a bit by a hand injury, but I wonder if he isn't also seeing his efficiency drop as the team needs him to take more shots. Harris will be fine. He will probably take 15-20 shots and score 15-20 points. That's plenty of damage, though not terrifying.

As I said yesterday, there has been no letup in the ambition of BCHS' scheduling, so don't let the 4-12 record fool you. Victor Valley looked like a junior college team when Shafter played them. BCHS has played a half dozen teams like that.

For Shafter, Cristian Barrios and Adrian Trujillo continue to be the offensive leaders. Both Barrios and Trujillo also stepped up defensively against Sierra. They each took a charge and did a good job of filling passing lanes and applying heat to the ball. I should also mention that Barrios was recently honored by the Jockey Club in Bakersfield along with 11 other area athletes for his play this year. Freshman Cyrus Parsons and sophomore Angelo Senoran have also been coming on in recent weeks. Both players were integral to the fourth quarter comeback against Sierra.

The game is in Bakersfield tonight.

Go Generals!

SSL Begins: Stock Taking

The Generals' South Sequoia League schedule begins on Friday with game at Bakersfield Christian. I will have a preview of that game tomorrow. For now, I would like to revisit some statistics from before the season. In this post, I used two factors - how good a team was last year and how much of a team's scoring came from seniors - to predict how good they would be this year. It is a highly flawed process, but I figured that while the process lacked rigor, it was easy. So here are the preseason predictions and current calpreps rating (in points from the national average).

	Pred. Rating	Curr. Rating	W-L
Tehachapi	-9	2.2	10-6
Taft	-8.7	-0.9	13-5
BCHS	2.5	-4.7	4-12
Wasco	-11.5	-14.2	4-13
Arvin	-25.3	-16	5-12
Shafter	-17.4	-17.5	4-10

The current ratings are going to change and I wouldn't take the differences between Shafter, Arvin, and Wasco or the differences between Tehachapi and Taft too seriously. BCHS remains a mystery. Most of their games have been against truly outstanding teams who have predictably blown them out, so that 4 and 12 record may not be indicative of how they will fare going forward. I should also note that Wasco played most of their schedule so far without the services of Christian Rodriguez, arguably their best player from last year. He is back now and seems to be playing well. I am surprised that Arvin had as successful a pre-league season as they had. The win over South is a real feather in their cap. However, only Tehachapi has a better win than Shafter's victory over Sierra last week. In fact, Shafter has displayed a wide range, beating Sierra and narrowly missing wins against Sunnyside and Rosamond, and losing to Mira Monte, Delano, and Coalinga. This is perhaps to be expected from a young team. Here is hoping that the team's better angels win out.

Highlights from the Sunnyside Game

Shafter 50, Sierra 46

I happily report a big, come from behind victory in Shafter last night. The score was 21-20 Sierra at the half. Sierra added to their lead in the third quarter, and started the final quarter with a 7 point cushion, but Shafter won the final frame 17 to 6 to send the mountain boys home hungry.

Cristian Barrios led the way with 19 points. Adrian Trujillo and Cyrus Parsons had 10. Angelo Senoran scored 5 and Evan Hernandez 4. Horacio Lazaro added two huge points, making two free throws with 14 seconds to go and extend the lead to 4.

Make no mistake, this was a solid win for Shafter. Calpreps.com had the Chieftains as 21 point favorites. Congratulations to the team.

Sierra Preview

Sierra comes into our green and golden valley with a 9 and 3 record and a 5 game winning streak. This is the back end of a home and home arrangement that sent Shafter to the mountains last year, returning with an 8-point loss hung around their necks. It was the fourth meeting in a series dating back to the 1987-88 season and it was a game of extremes. Sierra sat back in a zone, using their size to try to force shots from outside. Shafter obliged, heaving up 41 three pointers, easily the most since I have been paying attention and perhaps the most in Shafter High history. Only 7 of those shots connected, leaving the Shafter faithful wondering how a few bounces might have changed the outcome. I wonder if this year's seemingly more selective and accurate version of Adrian Trujillo le bombardier might have made more than the 3 of 13 of last year's model. Perhaps we will find out tonight. The other unusual fact about the game was the lopsided distribution of free throws. Shafter shot 10 times from the charity stripe compared to 49 attempts for the home team.

This year the Chieftains have one common opponent with the Generals. Both teams lost close games to Sunnyside. Sierra is led by four year varsity player Brandon Bill, a 5'9" guard who wears number 13. They are not quite as big as last year, so we may see them defend differently.

Kennedy Highlights

From the first game of the year.

Shafter 45, Delano 60

The Generals fall to 3 and 10 on the year with this loss. The game was tied 14-14 after the first quarter, 28-18 at the half, and 45-26 to start the 4th, so it was the middle quarters where the game was lost.

No one should give up on this season. This team has some good wins in it and the league is not especially strong this year. Remember, Taft, the team that many regard as the best in the SSL, lost to Delano too. However, if you need more reasons for optimism, look at the distribution of scoring last night.

2 Freshmen - 7 points
2 Sophomores - 8 points
1 Junior - 12 points
3 Seniors - 18 points

Those freshmen and sophomores are getting a lot of minutes. They are the bright future of Shafter basketball.

Delano Preview

Shafter takes on the Delano Tigers in a non-league home game tonight. The Frosh game is scheduled to start around 4:00 and the varsity game should start around 6:30. Delano has 5 wins and 15 losses, but has been playing its best basketball recently. Delano came out of the Garces Tournament with three victories including wins over SSL schools Arvin and Taft. Since then, Delano has had some close losses to good teams including Redwood and Golden West.

Delano is led by number 11, 5'5" senior point guard Mark Pinquian. Pinquian comes into the game averaging 17.5 points per contest with more than 10 of those points coming from three pointers. The Generals need to be sure not to lose him. That challenge applies to the whole team. As a group, the Tigers live and die by the three. Right about half of their points come from distance.

Delano has the edge in the historical series, which dates back to the 1933-34 season. The Tigers have won 21 of the 32 meetings and currently have a two game winning streak against the Generals, winning both contests in the 03-04 season.

Good luck Generals.

Shafter 32, Lompoc 56